Jan. 24 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. Treasury Undersecretary Stuart
Levey, the department’s top official for fighting terrorist
financing, plans to resign after six-and-a-half years in the job.

“There’s no perfect time for these things but this is as
good a time as any,” Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner
said in a statement. The White House intends this week to name
David Cohen, assistant secretary for terrorist financing, to
replace Levey, an administration official said on condition of
anonymity because the decision hasn’t been publicly announced.

Levey, 47, has headed an office that oversees the
Treasury’s efforts to stop illicit international funding and
enforces economic and trade sanctions. During a tenure that
spanned both the Bush and Obama administrations, Levey has
helped lead the American effort to staunch the flow of money
intended to help al-Qaeda and regimes in Iran and North Korea.

“Every financial institution anywhere in the world needs to
preserve its reputation for integrity in order to do business
globally and especially in the U.S.,” Geithner said. “Stuart has
been able to use that reality as an incentive to get the private
sector to move to reinforce our policies.”

The Treasury secretary added that Cohen “came to Treasury
with well established outside expertise and has worked at
Stuart’s side for the last two years.”

The plans for Levey’s resignation and Cohen’s nomination
were reported earlier by the Wall Street Journal.